


let it burst (out of you like a star)

by MadameRed



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cuban!Lance, Female pronouns for Pidge, Gen, M/M, More tags to be added, Multi, Pidge's Potty Mouth, Slow Build, Slow Romance, Team Bonding, Tongan!Hunk, klance, paladins having powers based on their lions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-08-10 07:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7835842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameRed/pseuds/MadameRed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After four years in space, the paladins have seen just about everything, which is why they were surprised to learn that they had the potential to develop certain abilities related to their bonds with each other and their lions. When these abilities slowly begin surfacing, the new paladins must try to make sense of them and how they'll fit into the war with the Galra. Pidge finds that she enjoys having a monstrous plant purring to her while she works, and Lance has multiple crises over both his abilities and his feelings for Keith. And the "decisive head of Voltron" --?</p><p> <i>"Now that I need an escort to the bathroom, I consider this to be rock bottom. You can take me to the airlock and eject me into space. I'm unfit to exist at this point," he deadpanned, his face a motley combination of complete mortification and hollow apathy.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This is taking place a little over four years since they first encountered the blue lion. As such, they're all four years older. As in all adults. Please keep that in mind.

It happened to Pidge first.

They were on a hollow, lifeless planet that the Galra were using as a storage cache. Weapons and munitions, old tech, spare parts for their ships, and even several large chambers filled with deactivated sentries were scattered throughout the entire planet. It was, however, wholly unmanned by the Galra. Not so much as a single watchtower or grunt was anywhere in sight as Keith and Pidge scouted the surface. Shiro remained skeptical until Coran informed them that even the castle’s scanners weren’t picking up any signs of life, residual or active.

With promises from Princess Allura and Coran that they would monitor the skies from the castle, the paladins landed their lions on the surface of the planet. The ground was spongy and black, with odd, shriveled looking green vines spidered across the surface. Lance kicked one, and seemed almost offended when it didn’t do anything that a normal vine wouldn’t do. Aside from small hills - mounds, really - the surface of the planet was plain. There was no cover - not even any rocks large enough to conceal any of the lions.

They wandered to the nearest opening in the ground, which was too perfectly formed to have occurred naturally. The presence of stairs carved into rock confirmed their suspicions that the Galra had crafted the tunnel. The main shaft was dark, devoid of even bioluminescent plants or rocks that seemed to be a staple on most alien planets they landed on. The air was thick and stagnant, much like a wet blanket draped over their heads. Hunk scratched at his throat, crinkling his nose, and voiced his displeasure.

"We might find things we can use against the Galra in here," Shiro reasoned.

"But why isn't it guarded? If there are secret... secrets in here, shouldn't there be wards or sentries or something? Or a giant monster?" Hunk wondered.

"Unless there really isn't anything useful here," Keith muttered, crossing his arms. "And they've just left all this junk here as a distraction." The stairs dumped them out into a small chamber, and Pidge dropped a portable holo-lamp on the ground. Blue-white light illuminated the chamber, which was littered with rusted tools, broken plasma guns, and the torso of a Galra droid. Three more tunnels with low ceilings led in different directions. Shiro knelt down and opened a dented metal crate, peering inside curiously. Miscellaneous bits of armour and a few small handguns were all he found. He snapped the lid shut and stood.

"I'm thinking this was just a dump site for their old, outdated gear, but I'd still like to sweep the caverns to make sure there's no computers we can scan for intel," he said.

"And you don't think it's even a little strange that potentially devastating information is just abandoned on a planet that any old bounty hunter or startlingly handsome blue lion pilot could just stumble across?" Lance asked.

"I agree with Lance, for once," Keith said. Pidge raised an eyebrow at him and Hunk grinned. His ears pinked, and he scowled at them. "I meant about the lack of protection!" Lance puffed up anyway, and winked at Keith, whose scowl deepened as he crossed his arms and became very interested in the walls of the cavern.

"Coran's already confirmed that nothing is down here. We'll have to be wary of any traps, but this place is as deserted as they come. I think we should look around and collect anything that might be useful. Then we can plant explosives and obliterate this place. One less asset for the Galra is never a bad thing for us," Shiro said with a small, somewhat dark smile. "Coran, we're coming back up for supplies."

\---

"Pidge, Lance, you two head down that tunnel," Shiro said once they'd returned to the cavern, packs and water canteens in tow. "Hunk, Keith, and I will take that one."

"You and Hunk take one. I'll take the third myself," Keith said. "You said yourself that the planet is empty. If the worst that can happen is me getting caught in a trap, you guys will know," he reasoned, tapping his helmet. Shiro didn't look convinced. Lance slung his arm around Keith's shoulder.

"He wants to be a hero! And I'm feeling exceptionally generous today, so I'll let him take some of the glory.” He thrust his arm out toward one of the tunnels. “Go, young padawan. Use all the skills I’ve -”

With a groan, Keith planted his hand against the side of Lance’s face and shoved him away and stalked toward the tunnel. 

“All right, but don’t take any unnecessary risks. This is a simple task, I don’t want anyone coming back injured,” Shiro said. Keith lifted a hand to indicate that he’d heard, and then disappeared down the far left tunnel. Lance bounced on the balls of his feet.

“Right, okay, sure. We’ll let you know if we find anything!” he rushed, grabbing Pidge’s arm and dragging her down the middle tunnel. She squawked and stumbled after the blue paladin with a shriek of his name. Hunk shrugged and started off down the remaining tunnel.

“Maybe we should have given Lance some breadcrumbs,” he wondered aloud. Shiro dropped his arms to hang at his sides and silently questioned every deity he knew of as to how he got saddled with such an ornery group. 

\---

“Lance, will you slow down?” Pidge complained. She wrenched her arm from Lance’s hold and skidded to a halt. Lance whirled around to face her, hands on his hips.

“How can I slow down? This is a once in a lifetime chance to rifle through Zarkon’s dirty laundry!” he said. Pidge rolled her eyes and lit up the torch on her gauntlets.

“I sincerely doubt Zarkon’s got any game-changing secrets stashed in here. This is more like his garbage can,” she said. She lifted up her arm and gazed around the tunnel. She’d been half expecting to see carvings on the walls, like in the cavern they’d discovered the blue lion in on Earth. There was nothing except rock streaking through that same spongy blackness they’d walked on upon the surface. Every so often, she’d see one of those spindly green vines cracking through the black soil and descending through a fissure in the floor. She paused and bent forward, squeezing one of the vines between her thumb and forefinger. It felt like a normal enough plant, and when she released it, the fingers of her glove were covered in a light dusting of green-brown powder. She wiped her hand on a rock and glanced back up. Lance was sauntering down the tunnel, hand held high to light the way.

“Hey, wait up!” Pidge called. She jogged after him, hopping around a sharp curve in the tunnel.

“There’s a room up here to the left!” Lance announced. They entered the room, which had a low ceiling. There was no telling how far back it went, as their torches only illuminated so far. All around them there were rusted metal crates, racks with broken pulse rifles, deactivated droids in great piles, and even what looked like the fuselage of a busted fighter ship. Their footsteps were muffled; the floor of the room was not rock, but the pulpy black soil, compacted enough that their feet didn’t sink into it. Lance lifted his arm, flashing his torchlight across a pile of dented armour.

“I’m going to see how far back this goes. You see if you can find some sort of way to light this place up,” he said. Pidge waved him off.

“Yeah, yeah. Try not to step into a bear trap or something,” she muttered, already bending down to look into a crate. Lance cackled to himself as he wandered off.

“Space-bears...”

Pidge rolled her eyes, prying the lid off the crate and rummaging through. There were a few busted pieces of what looked to be a control panel, various pieces of armour, and fried and useless microchips of some sort. Groaning in disgust, she shoved the crate aside and reached for another one. 

“Lights, Pidge!” Lance called, already sounding rather far away. Pidge rolled her eyes again, thought briefly of trademarking the action and charging anyone else who used it, and then stood, glancing around. She shone her torch on a panel on the wall by the tunnel entrance. It looked to be Galra-activated, and Pidge wished she’d gone with Shiro instead. Casting about, she grinned when she saw one of the droids. She picked up the disembodied arm of one of them and set it against the panel. A series of three beeps echoed in the room, and at first she thought lasers might start firing at her (which wouldn’t even be that strange, she thought sadly). Lights flickered on, one by one, chaining down past her line of eyesight. The room was massive, it seemed. Deep, at least; it wasn’t really all that wide. Hunk could definitely spit from side to the other.

Pidge went back to the boxes, looting through them. Three more contained nothing but junk, but the fourth had her face splitting into a wide, excited smile. She picked up the dense, cold Galra robot and brushed the bits of rusted metal off of it. 

“Hi there, Rover the Second,” she said with more emotion than expected. She sat back down on the ground and pulled her pack around, withdrawing her basic toolkit to see what she could do. Fortunately, it was merely deactivated instead of completely destroyed. She was able to reactivate and repurpose it, and she couldn’t help the giggle she let out when it hovered around her head. 

She heard Lance cough somewhere down at the other end of the room, but she didn’t want to rejoin him just yet. She opened the back panel of the new Rover and peered inside. Mechanically, the tech within was nearly the same as the original Rover. She didn’t know how old this particular drone was, but she figured that the tech couldn’t be _too_  dated for all their similarities. Either that, or the Galra just never updated anything. Ever. She shined a light inside and began to tinker just as a rasping gasp came over her comm-link.

“Pidge-” She jolted upright, snapping Rover shut.

“Lance! What’s wrong?” Silence was her answer. She twisted to her feet and sped down the direction that Lance had wandered off in, not bothering to check and see if her new drone was following her. “Lance! Where are you?” she called, forgetting about the comm-link. Her heart began to beat faster and her eyes cast about frantically. There was really only one path, but she couldn’t see Lance at all. A crash from further up ahead made her snap her gaze up, and she took off at a sprint. Another crash, this time off to her right. She skidded to a halt and espied a narrow path that could hardly pass as a path. Of course that would be where Lance had managed to get himself stuck in. She squeezed between stacked crates as quickly as she dared, silently thanking Galra efficiency and their ability to properly stack boxes. A third crash sounded, but the light was dim, being unable to penetrate through the crates. 

“Holy- Lance!” He was slumped on the ground, barely propped up against a crate, struggling to lift his arm to knock something else over. His eyes fluttered up to hers and he dropped his arm immediately and then closed his eyes. Pidge ran to him and dropped to her knees. His dark skin was pale and sweat beaded on his forehead. He’d been gasping for breath, she’d noticed it as she ran to him, but now he seemed to breathe easier. Pidge pulled his helmet from him.

“Lance, what happened? What’s on your neck?” She squinted at his neck, where pale red rings that looked like little welts were just barely starting to form. She pulled her glove off and touched one of them. The abrasion was barely there and didn’t seem to be worsening at her touch, nor did it seem to cause the blue paladin any pain. He took a deep breath, like one would do when they finally stepped outside after being cooped up in a room with a dozen smelly athletes. His eyes fluttered open after another moment, and he even found the energy to smile weakly up at her. 

“Well, aren’t you a breath of fresh air,” he joked, his voice papery and raw. Pidge squinted at him. “Seriously, I couldn’t breathe before.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. Lance struggled to sit up. Pidge grabbed his arm to help him, and was able to haul him into a more comfortable position. He wiped at his brow with the back of his hand and took another deep breath. Pidge rummaged through his pack and pulled out his waterskin, unscrewing the cap and handing it to him. He nodded his thanks and took a long pull of it, sighing loudly and dramatically when he was done. 

“I don’t know, man. It was like I’d swallowed a bunch of cotton balls, and then my legs literally gave out. I could move them, but they wouldn’t do what I wanted them to do.” Lance furrowed his brow. He shook his left foot. “Like if I’d tried to do that before, my right knee would jerk upward.” Pidge frowned.

“That sounds neurological, though, not a respiratory issue,” she said. She bit her lip, and then her eyes widened. “Did you stab yourself with anything?” Lance raised an eyebrow at her.

“Wearing armour, hello,” he said, rapping his knuckles against his greaves. Pidge bit the inside of her lip.

“Did you open anything?” she asked. Lance shook his head. She paused a moment, staring past Lance, thinking. 

“Well, shit.”

\---

“Pidge, what are you doing? What’s going on?” Lance asked. They stood in the main hall of the chamber, facing one another. The welts on Lance’s neck were nearly gone and his voice was far stronger. 

“Testing a theory. Just shut up and stand there,” she said. Lance literally threw his hands in the air, and Pidge twitched at his theatrics.

“Well what am I supposed to do? You know I get bored easily,” he whined. Pidge rolled her eyes and turned to walk away.

“Think about how you’re going to ask Keith out or something,” she said. She ignored his loud, dramatic declarations that he’d never lower himself to dating a mullet with a human attached to it and jogged down the path. “Lance!” she said sharply into the comm-link. “Just stand there and when your breathing starts getting tight again, tell me immediately, okay?”

“Okay, fine, whatever,” Lance agreed grumpily. “But I’m not going to think about Keith!” Pidge snickered. 

“Sure you won’t,” she said. She sat down and opened Rover up again, quietly humming along to the song Lance didn’t realise he was singing. Without her full workshop of tools, there wasn’t much she could do, so instead she set about to mapping out the tech inside of the drone and committing it to memory. She was just about to jog back down to get her own pack that she’d left by the entrance when Lance’s tight voice came through to her over the comm-link. She hadn’t even noticed when he’d stopped singing.

“Uh, Pidge -” He sounded like he had a horrible case of strep throat.

“Coming!” she called. She closed Rover and ran down the path again. She took careful note of Lance this time as she approached; his throat looked slightly swollen, his skin was losing its colour once more, and he looked very uncomfortable, bordering on pain. As soon as she came within fifteen feet of him, however, his breaths became easier. “Shit,” she said. Lance coughed as she slowed to a walk and stepped up to him. 

“What?” he croaked.

“I think I figured out why this planet is filled with Galra tech, but is completely abandoned,” Pidge said, though she wasn’t particularly thrilled. Lance rubbed as his throat, wincing slightly.

“ _And?”_

“The air is a neurotoxin,” she said. “It’s basically poison, and too much exposure affects your breathing and begins to shut down your nervous system, which is why your legs gave out.” Lance scowled.

“Leave it to the Galra to pick a naturally booby-trapped planet to drop their shit on!” he groused, crossing his arms. He narrowed his eyes and squinted at Pidge. “Wait, why aren’t _you_  effected by it?” Pidge was tapping away at the holo-screen projected by her gauntlet.

“I have no idea. Physiologically speaking, all humans should have a strong negative reaction to the natural neurotoxin produced by this planet. Its original residents, if there were any, were probably immune to it. Those weird vines are immune to it, too, which is probably why they’re the only thing growing here,” she said stonily, engrossed in her screen. Lance threw an arm around her shoulders.

“Then we’re stuck like glue, my little pigeon!” he chirped merrily. Pidge rolled her eyes, but smiled as his typical humour began to resurface. 

“Shiro? Hunk? Keith? Do you copy?” she asked into the comm-link. There were several tense ticks of silence before Shiro’s voice filtered through.

“We’re here, Pidge, but there’s a problem,” he said. He sounded like he’d choked down several handfuls of gravel, and he was breathing heavily. 

“I broke this weird pot of something and all this dust flew up and I think I poisoned us,” Hunk gasped. Pidge could feel Lance tensing up beside her, and she put a reassuring hand on his back. 

“You didn’t poison anyone, Hunk. It’s the planet, it produces some sort of neurotoxin. Can you guys get back to that first chamber?” she asked. Shiro grunted into the comm.

“We’re only a couple meters away; we’ve been in a room just barely down the tunnel,” he said tightly. Pidge nodded.

“Good. Get back to the castle, tell Allura and Coran what’s going on. Maybe they can dig up some information about this place. We haven’t heard from Keith, so Lance and I will go look for him,” she said decisively. Shiro made a garbled noise.

“Absolutely not-”

“You’ll collapse-” Hunk began.

“The toxin doesn’t effect me for some reason, and as long as Lance is standing nearby, he’s fine, too. I have no idea why it’s not bothering me, and even fewer ideas as to why it’s not bothering Lance when he’s near, but I’m not going to look a gift Galra in the mouth!” she cut in, her voice sharp and authoritative. “I’m the only one who can safely navigate this place without dying, which is what Keith could be doing right now, and I-”

“Hey, wow, okay, let’s just go now, yeah?” Lance said loudly, pulling Pidge along suddenly, his long legs taking wider strides than she could keep up with without stumbling. She squawked as he all but dragged her, pulling away just in time to grab her bag by the entrance. Lance stood by the door impatiently, knowing he couldn’t wander too far from Pidge’s... whatever Pidge was doing to the neurotixin in the air. They heard Shiro sigh into the comm.

“You’re right, Pidge. We’ll get Coran to try and locate Keith,” he said. He coughed roughly. “Stay safe you two, and bring Keith home.” 

Pidge nodded to herself in affirmation, stuffed her tools into her bag, and stood. Lance was standing in the tunnel, arms crossed, gazing anxiously down into the darkness. She reached out to him and clasped his shoulder, squeezing tightly. Lance nodded at her stiffly, then jerked his head down the tunnel in the direction they’d come from. As they jogged back to the main chamber, Pidge hoped they found Keith soon. She missed normal Lance. 

“Keith, do you copy?” she spoke loudly into the comm-link. Silence answered her, and she pressed her lips into a tight line. They spilled into that first chamber and wasted no time in turning down Keith’s tunnel. Lance removed his helmet and called Keith’s name, but his voice didn’t even echo in the low, spongy tunnel. They kept their eyes open, but they saw no sign of him, and hadn’t encountered any rooms or cracks in the walls. Lance was taking quick, long strides, his face set in a grim carving that barely looked like him anymore. Pidge was forced to jog to keep up with him; she hadn’t experienced any spectacular growth spurt in the last few years, and she was still the shortest paladin. 

“Lance, slow down! It’s too dark in here and you’re moving too fast,” she complained. 

“A planet is trying to _kill_  us, Pidge, and Keith isn’t answering. We can’t just crawl along like snails,” he said tartly. Pidge narrowed her eyes at the back of his head, scowling, and slowing down just a little. Lance kept going, but he turned to look at her over his shoulder. “And you have to keep up, because you like some kind of filter and I really don’t want to die tonight.” Pidge frowned.

“Well maybe if you weren’t so freakishly- ACK!” The toe of her boot snagged in one of those strange vines. She went down, throwing her hands out in front of her. She stopped the brunt of her weight from coming down on her chin, but her teeth still snapped together painfully. Lance jogged back to her side instantly, and she could see a small smirk in place as he helped her sit up. She smacked his hands away, secretly pleased at his quiet chuckle, and leaned down to tug at the vine that seemed to have wrapped itself around her boot. She grasped the vine and attempted to tug, but paused when she noticed that it seemed to have a pulse. She snatched her hands back as if she’d been burned, her eyes going wide. Lance glanced down at her.

“Pidge, what are you doing? We don’t have time to be messing around,” he chastised. Choosing to ignore the fact that _Lance_  was lecturing her about supposed shenanigans, she whipped her head up to stare at him. 

“I think the plant is breathing!” she shrieked. Lance furrowed his brow at her. 

“What in the universe are you talking about, Pidge?” She pointed at the vine that was still wrapped snugly around her boot.

“There - there was some kind of pulse! That thing is _alive!_ ” she squeaked. She wished she’d sounded indignant or something, but she was honestly still trying to process a plant being a thing that _breathed_  on a planet that was supposed to be entirely devoid of life. She took a deep breath and calmed herself. “Okay, so maybe a sentient plant-beast is one of the least strange things we’ve encountered in the past few years, but could you _please_  stop staring at me like I’ve gone crazy and just touch the damn thing?” she snapped, glaring up at Lance. His lower lip poked out, and he at least seemed to be contemplating her words. He knelt down and put his hand on the vine like she did and waited a few ticks. 

“I don’t feel anything,” he said, raising his eyebrow at her. With a noise like an agitated cat, she grasped the plant, her hand right next to Lance’s, and waited. Sure enough, there was that strange pulse-beat again, and she steeled her resolve and kept her hand there. 

“You don’t feel that?” she asked. Lance squeezed the plant a little tighter, but still shook his head. Curiosity now beginning to overwhelm the displaced sort of wrongness, she quickly removed her glove and touched the plant with her bare hand. 

It thrummed beneath her touch, nearly vibrating, feeling like it was moving and squirming and dancing. She looked up at Lance sharply, who still had his hand on the plant. He shook his head. So she was the only one who could feel the life in this plant, just like she was the only one who could tolerate the neurotoxin of the planet. She was beginning to think the two were connected, and voiced her thoughts out loud to Lance.

“I think the plant is producing the neurotixin,” she said quietly. The plant pulsed rapidly beneath her palm, fluttering and humming in an almost soothing manner. She smiled. “I think I’m right. This thing is... alive, almost.” She noticed that Lance still had a death grip on the plant. “Let go a bit,” she told him. He obeyed, and the plant tittered in its strange, pulsing, buzzing plant-beast-speak. She could feel the buzzing all the way up her arm, and it wasn’t unpleasant or uncomfortable at all. In fact, it felt natural, like the first time she’d successfully interpreted Green’s thoughts in her mind. She wanted to stay there, crouched on the ground and figuring out what in the known galaxy this plant was and how she was communicating with it, but she knew that Keith’s time was running out, and that finding him was the most important thing right now. 

Before she could move to stand up, bright white exploded behind her eyes, blinding her. She squawked in surprise and felt Lance’s hands on her shoulders, could hear a faint din of him calling her name. The buzzing from the plant intensified, ringing in her ears and wrapping around her head. A wave of nausea washed over her and she pitched forward, gagging. She couldn’t see anything, her eyes wide open but blinded. In her mind, a path opened before her and slipped past in a great blur, rushing until it came to a stop on a cluster of vines wrapped around a suit of armour. Not Galran armour, she noticed. Paladin armour! Paladin armour with a paladin in it! 

The buzzing in her ears began to recede and her vision slowly returned. She gasped for breath and clung to Lance, eyes wide and blinking rapidly. She clutched as his shoulders and scrambled to her feet. 

“K-Keith!” she gasped. “I know where he is!” Lance was on his feet immediately. 

“What the hell just happened?” he demanded. She tugged on his arm and then took off down the tunnel again. 

“My guess? That plant showed me where Keith is,” she huffed as she ran. Lance gaped at her, bug-eyed and slack jawed.

“Are you kidding me?”

“I didn’t say it was a _good_  guess, but it’s all I’ve got right now!” Pidge said, rolling her eyes. “Go left!” She shoved at Lance and he stumbled into a room with an indignant shout. He regained his footing and lifted the torch in his gauntlet, gazing around the room with wide eyes.

“Holy quiznak,” he murmured. 

The entirety of the room was filled with clusters of those strange vines. Pidge stared around in wonder, positive that her brown eyes were wider than they’d ever been in her life. The very air around her pulsed with life, thrumming through her body and swirling around her. The buzzing was back, surrounding her and cradling her as she stepped through the room. She was being guided by the plant, beckoned by it, and it led her right to Keith.

The red paladin had crumpled to the floor and the vines had wrapped around his body, probably not helping his situation. His breathing was coming in shallow, ragged gasps and he was very unconscious, which was probably a good thing, Pidge guessed. The strange red welts that Lance had developed looked far worse on Keith’s naturally pale skin, angry and swollen. His whole body shook and sweat rolled down his face, dripping onto the ground. His helmet lay discarded a few feet from him, no doubt torn from his head in an effort to facilitate breathing.

“Keith!” Pidge called. She rushed over to him, and Lance was there not a moment later. He fell to his knees, his brows knit together in concern.

“Keith, wake up, buddy. Come on, you jackass, Pidge is here with her weird zombie plant thing and she’s gonna help you, so you better wake your ass up and show some appreciation,” Lance said tightly, lifting Keith’s head from the ground. Keith was, unsurprisingly, unresponsive. Face contorting in anger, Lance reached forward and grabbed at the vines, tugging on them ineffectively. “Pidge, a little help here?” 

The mild panic in Lance’s voice snapped Pidge out of her reverie. She stared hard at Keith’s chest, satisfied when she saw that his breathing began to even out after a few ticks. She reached for the vines that had grown around Keith’s legs and pulled at them, but they held fast. They buzzed and hummed, but gave her no vision about how to solve this problem like they did before. She yanked on them, but they did nothing except vibrate in what she interpreted as an annoyed way. She bared her teeth at them.

“Well if you’re so pissed off, then just let him fucking go and maybe I won’t burn you to cinders!” she snarled. A tick passed, and then she could swear she heard the plant _whine_. They buzzed in displeasure and then suddenly they gave way under her hands. She fell backward on her rump, the vines going with her and humming placatingly. Lance propped Keith’s head in his lap and leaned forward, quickly tugging the remainder of the vines off of him. He looked up at Pidge sharply.

“Are you some kind of death-plant whisperer now?” he asked, only half joking. Pidge sat back against a clump of vines, her irritation melting away as the thrumming of the plant coalesced around her in a bizarrely comforting way. She focused her gaze on Keith, who was now breathing evenly and had stopped shaking. His eyelids fluttered, and Lance breathed a half laugh, tossing his head back and breathing deeply. Pidge touched one of the vines beside her and wondered just what the hell had happened to her.

\---

Keith spent only a few hours in a cryopod, and Lance led him to the commons area of the castle, promising that Allura would fill him in on what exactly happened. Pidge, Shiro, Hunk, Allura, and Coran were sitting on the couches, heads bent conspiratorially and murmuring lowly. They all sat up when the door to the commons slid open, and smiles spread across all of their faces. Shiro rose to greet him, a steady hand on his shoulder.

“Good to see you up and about,” he said warmly. Hunk rushed up and wrapped him in a hug, which left Keith coughing and patting the large man’s back not nearly as awkwardly as he might have several years ago. Pidge grinned at him from behind Hunk, and Keith’s expression softened. Hunk set him down, and Keith stepped up to her.

“I still don’t really understand what you did, but thank you,” he said quietly, sincerely. Pidge flushed happily, her face breaking into a toothy grin. She punched him on his shoulder.

“Don’t mention it,” she said, and Keith looked relieved. Pidge knew that, despite having long since become comfortable with his fellow paladins, Keith still didn’t express himself very well. She was fine with that; she still preferred the company of her tools and tech to most human or alien interaction. 

They all agreed to move to the kitchen, where they could eat and allow Allura and Coran to attempt to explain things as best as they could. They settled around the table with their plates of food goo, and everyone politely ignored the way Lance settled in close to Keith and didn’t touch his own food until Keith had tucked in to his. 

Coran confirmed what Pidge suspected: the strange plant life covering the planet had released the neurotoxin. The Galra were aware of this, and used it to their advantage to dump their disused equipment until they felt the need to either destroy it or return to fix it. As for her immunity, what Allura told them had all of their minds in a flutter. The paladins of old had certain abilities. Something akin to magic, she said, but it seemed to be linked to the lions somehow. The previous green paladin had been able to camouflage himself almost seamlessly into any environment.

“So does that mean I’ll be able to do that, too?” Pidge asked. Allura looked thoughtful.

“I honestly do not know, Pidge,” she said. “You may. Or, the manifestations may be entirely unique to each individual paladin. You may not be able to do what he did; I do not believe he was able to do what you do.”

“I don’t even know what it is I can do,” Pidge said, a little helplessly. Allura smiled at her.

“It seems that you can purify the air around you,” the princess said gently. “And command plant-life, to an extent. It seems alive to you, and therefore you are able to bend it to your will. Whether you give it life or you have the ability to awaken dormant sentience, well, I am not quite sure.” Pidge thought of how loud the buzzing from the plant had been, and she frowned slightly. 

“I think I’d rather be a chameleon,” she grumbled. Keith looked up from his food goo. 

“I, for one, am kind of glad you’re not a chameleon,” he said with a small smile. 

“Me for two!” Lance mumbled around a mouthful of food. Pidge felt her cheeks colour, and she grinned at them. She turned to Allura, her smile still in place.

“Will the others get abilities like mine?” she asked. Allura shrugged.

“It’s quite possible, though I don’t know what triggers them to manifest. The paladins of old all had abilities of their own, but I was young when they came into their powers. I’m afraid I don’t know what causes their emergence,” she said somewhat sadly. Coran stroked his mustache.

“It’s not really something we can study, as we believe it’s more related to the bond with your lions than anything else,” he said. He eyed Pidge carefully. “Would you like to test your new abilities again?” he asked, his tone slightly mysterious. Pidge grinned.

\---

They descended to the ground of the planet, each of them making sure not to stray too far from Pidge for too long. Keith in particular hovered close by, something that everyone decided not to say a word about. Coran indicated to the landing gear of the castleship. Pidge looked down, and saw that the vines were beginning to creep up the sides. Lance stepped up beside Pidge. She looked up at him, and he grinned at her.

“You kind of yelled at the plant before,” he said with a laugh. “You’re good at being bossy, so do yo’ thang!” He shoved her forward before she could smack him. She approached the leg of the ship and as she grew closer, she felt the energy of the plant calling out to her, humming and buzzing in greeting. She reached one bare hand out to touch it and it thrummed in what she could swear was contentment. 

 _Are you... happy? Happy that I can feel you?_  She thought. She knew it was ludicrous, talking to a plant that didn’t give off any signs of life to anyone else but her. But the plant veritably trilled beneath her touch. She gasped, her eyes widening in shock, but she kept her hand still on the vine. Another buzzing, deeper within the ground and somewhat nervous, crept up her spine and hovered at the back of her neck, making her hand stand on end. A brief flash of red fluttered before her eyes.

 _You had Keith,_  she thought. The thrum pulsed grumpily, and she smiled. _I’m sorry I threatened you. I was worried about my friend._  A tick passed, and the energy swirled around her, tittering contentedly. She laughed, trying to keep the hysteria out of her voice. She was apologizing to an alien plant.  She thought that after after nearly four years flying through space in a giant mechanical lion that she wouldn’t be surprised by much of anything anymore. Man, how wrong could a girl get? 

 _We need to go, though, and we don’t want to hurt you when we take off,_  she thought to the plant. The energy pulsed slowly, settling down at her feet in what she thought was a display of sadness. Her smile softened. _What if I promised to come visit?_  The buzzing amplified and danced around her, and she watched in amazement as the plants began to squirm along the sleek white metal of the ship. Her friends gasped behind her, and she heard at least one of them take a step back. The vines began to twist their way off of the castleship, slithering back onto the ground and flattening themselves. Pidge removed her hand from the last vine and it slipped to the ground with the others. The energy from the plant curled around her one last time, caressing her fondly before retreating back into the planet. She felt strangely empty, her own thoughts echoing too loudly in her head for comfort. Before she could dwell too much on it, she turned around to her friends.

Shiro, Allura, and Coran looked immensely proud of her, beaming happily. Keith was the one who had taken a step back away from the plant, and he seemed a little discontent. Understandably so, Pidge thought. Lance stood by Keith’s side, very close to him, and Pidge took a mental snapshot for blackmail later. Hunk was kneeling by the plants, whispering to them. She rubbed the back of her head, grinned broadly at them, and knew in that moment that her life wasn’t empty at all. 

\---

Pidge sat in her workshop, tinkering around in Rover the Second. She had just added a protective shield to the little drone that would prevent it from being re-converted back to the Purple Side. She was working on an invisibility booster for it when the door to the shop opened and Shiro walked in. He was carrying a small box, and greeted her with a smile. 

“Hey, Pidge,” he said, settling down in a chair next to her workbench. She glanced up, smiling at him.

“What’s up, boss?” He set the box down on her workbench and nudged it toward her.

“A little present for you,” he said with a small, mischievous smile. Pidge narrowed her eyes playfully at him and snatched up the box with a childish enthusiasm. Shiro chuckled as she flipped open the lid and pulled out the basketball sized, hollow glass sphere. She squinted at it before squealing in surprise. 

Energy hummed around her, and there was a flash of red before her eyes, and then a warm, low buzzing swirled around her mind. The piece of the plant greeted her enthusiastically and she gripped the glass, pressing her face to it. 

 _Hi, again_ _,_ she thought. The energy thrummed through her consciousness, content and pleased to be speaking with her again. Pidge looked up at Shiro, grinning widely.

“I’ll call it Audrey,” she announced proudly. Shiro looked confused, and Pidge wished, not for even the hundredth time, that they had DVD’s in space. She shook her head, just slightly, and smiled.

“Thank you, Shiro,” she said. The plant hummed happily, its energy coiling around her and even fluttering around Shiro momentarily. “Audrey says thank you, too.”

 


	2. Am I One or Five?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hunk becomes aware of more about his teammates than he ever, ever wanted, Coran knows his shit, and Lance really needs to shut up.

He knew it was a dream. He knew it was a dream, and he was okay with that, because he swore he could _smell_  the feke in his mother’s kitchen, and there was no octopus in space. He never considered himself to be a prideful man, but Hunk did take some small measure of satisfaction in being able to differentiate dreams from reality. His mother smiled at him and he grinned back, nimbly sidestepping her as she tried to rap his knuckles with a wooden spoon. 

“Go find your sister, _foha_ ,” she said. He leaned down and put an arm around her shoulders, pressing a kiss to the dark hair at her temple, remarkably unmarred by grey. 

“Sure, _fa’e_ ,” he said. His mother smiled as she always did when she heard either of her children speak her native tongue. His sister would probably be outside, in a tree or crouched under the back porch. He opened the screen door in the kitchen and let it bang shut behind him, and took in a deep breath of fresh summer air-

Only it wasn’t. His eyes snapped open and he stared around what could only be a Galra ship in horror. Why was there a Galra ship in his backyard? He looked around and absorbed his surroundings. He was in a prison cell, he guessed, not unlike the one he’d found Allura in several years ago. Cold metal surrounded him, with only dim slants of violet light filtering through the narrow window in the door. He shuffled back and pressed his back against the far wall of the cell. He sunk to the floor and let his head fall back, deciding to wait it out. He had to be in a dream; he knew this, because he remembered just hours ago that Keith and Lance had gotten into a truly spectacular pillow fight that had only ended when Pidge rose like a mad god from behind the couch, astride Shiro’s shoulders, screeching a war cry as they both pelted the red and blue paladins with several of Allura’s good pillows. 

He heard footsteps outside of the cell, growing closer, and he was surprised when a caged, barely controlled panic swelled to the front of his mind, accelerating his breathing and pushing his pulse to hammer louder in his ears. He plastered himself against the back of the cell, wishing the metal would open up and clamp down over him. The footsteps stopped, and half a moment later, the door swung open soundlessly. A Galra soldier stood, backlit by bright purple lights that hurt Hunk’s eyes and flanked by two sentry droids. Yellow eyes scrutinized him and his lip curled back in a mockery of a smile. Panic gripped him again as the soldier nodded almost imperceptibly to the droids. His legs scrambled for purchase on the floor as he tried to paint himself into the wall, and his voice wouldn’t work to protest. He fought against the cold, abnormally strong metal hands that gripped at his forearms and hauled him to his feet, but it was futile, and he knew better than to speak. 

They marched him up to the Galra soldier and brought him to a stop in front of him. He reached out and gripped his chin painfully, twisting his head.

“The druids request your presence. How _fortunate_  you are,” he all but purred, his voice like an oil slick. His smile was cruel, cold, empty, hard - and it scared Hunk to his core. It was a primal fear, something etched into his bones and his humanity by thousands of generations before him who had felt this same terror. 

And then the world went black as the butt of a blaster connected with the base of his skull. 

\--

Pain radiated from the back of his head, blooming around to his eyes and creeping down his neck. Against his better judgement, he struggled to crack his eyes open. _I want to be unconscious again,_  he thought miserably. Three druids hovered over him, looking like mutated plague doctors from hell and prodding at his arms. The one whose face he could see stood back from her associates, surveying him with a sort of morbid curiosity. 

He blinked and suddenly she was at his side, bending over him at an odd angle, her yellow eyes glowing from beneath her hood. Her clawed hand slowly crept forward, bony fingers gripping his right arm with a spindly strength that might have surprised him if he were surprised by anything anymore. He tried to move his head, and instead it simply lolled to the side, sending fresh ripples of pain flowing from his head. He prised his eyes open and looked down. He was shirtless, strapped to a table and struggling against his bonds. His eyes swept to his arm and the witch’s hand, where her claws dug into his pale skin.

Wait-

Ivory skin. He twisted his hand and lifted it as much as he could, straining to look at it. The skin was pale, and free from the scar he’d received when his sister dropped a curling iron on the back of his hand. His abdomen was lean and cut like diamonds and that definitely didn’t belong to him. 

“I have a gift for you, Champion,” the witch whispered huskily. 

“I’m not-”

The pain was sudden, blinding, white hot and excruciating, unlike anything Hunk had ever felt in his life. His arm felt like he was being sawed through with a blade made of ice. He screamed, his back arching and his body wrenching against the restraints. He thrashed as wildly as he could, but whatever that was cutting through the tendons and muscles in his arm just kept going. He could almost hear the ribbons of sinew in his arm snapping and was distantly, in a dissociated way, reminded of a rubber band snapping after being pulled too far. By the time the first cut was made into bone, he’d blacked out.

\---

Hunk jolted awake in bed. He gasped into the darkness of his small room, his chest heaving and his eyes wide and searching the top of his little bed-hole. He pushed his bangs out of his eyes, wiping the light sheen of sweat away in the process. He grasped at his right arm, feeling its warm wholeness. He looked down and lifted his night-shirt - whole and dark. His eyes adjusted to the darkness and he sought out the scar from his sister’s curling iron. There it was, old and puckered and entirely comforting. 

He sat up and dug his the heels of his hands into his eyes. Why did he dream of Shiro’s time in the Galra prison? He had nightmares, sure. After four years in space, fighting and bleeding across the universe against a sprawling empire, who wouldn’t? He’d seen and done things that he never would have thought himself capable of. He had nightmares about his friends - no, his family - caught in horrible situations that he couldn’t get them out of. Nightmares of the people he couldn’t save, of the people he’d sacrificed for the greater good. None of it had been easy, and nightmares were simply part of the job of being a paladin. 

But to dream of a very specific memory that Shiro had never spoken to any of them in detail about? Well, maybe he’d discussed it with Keith, but Hunk doubted it. Shiro wouldn’t want to burden his teammates with something that was in the past. They knew that he’d spent a year as their prisoner, forced to fight in the gladiatorial arena, and given a prosthetic arm. He never spoke of how he’d lost that arm. Hunk wondered, of course. Maybe he’d been injured in that first fight with Myzaks. Maybe it had happened after that. Now Hunk knew - Shiro had been an experiment to the druids. 

Without thinking, Hunk swung his legs over the side of his bed and stood. He had a feeling, a strange warble in his chest, that Shiro had woken up. And he didn’t know if Shiro might’ve been distressed or if he were used to these sorts of nightmares by now, but Hunk didn’t really feel like being alone. (Usually, he would have gone to Lance’s room and simply passed out on the floor beside his friend’s bed, only to be stepped on in the morning. The last time Hunk had tried to slip into Lance’s room, he’d heard Keith’s quiet, deep murmur from within. Lance had chuckled at something, and Keith had snorted and, from the sound of it, punched Lance. Hunk had quietly left, smiling to himself, and gone to usurp Pidge’s floor instead.)

He quietly padded through the halls of the castle, moving on autopilot, the soft blue lights having long since become comforting to him. He knew the halls like he knew the scar on the back of his hand, and soon he found himself approaching the kitchen. He settled his mind by telling himself that he’d grab a snack before he headed to the training deck, where Shiro was likely to be if he couldn’t sleep. He entered the kitchen, though, and saw immediately that he wouldn’t have to go looking for his leader after all.

Shiro was slumped at the table, fingers gripping a cup of tea that was steaming profusely. He looked exhausted, Hunk thought, and it was a slightly discomfiting sight. Shiro was always composed, always cool and collected and handsomely put together. He went into every situation they encountered with a dauntless sort of confidence, and it swept across his teammates and encouraged them. Pidge had said once that fear of disappointing Shiro was the only thing that kept them going sometimes, and Hunk thought she was only half joking. But now, here in an alien kitchen at probably three in the morning, Shiro looked weathered and beaten. Haunted. 

Hunk made himself known, not wanting to startle the other man. Shiro jumped a little anyway, blinking quickly and tensing his shoulders. Recognition fell over him and he relaxed again, a tired smile working its way onto his face. He glanced down at the pot on the table in front of him.

“Tea?” he offered. Hunk hovered in the doorway.

“Only if you’re up for the company,” he said. Shiro regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, his head tilting just slightly. His lips quirked up again.

“I don’t mind,” he finally admitted. Letting out a breath he’d been holding, Hunk stepped into the kitchen and retrieved a cup from the cupboard.

“I figured as much,” he said without thinking. Shiro quirked an eyebrow at him. “I- I just mean, sometimes when I have a nightmare, I like to not be alone, too.” He hastily poured himself some tea. “Not that I know you had a nightmare or anything, but I just kinda figured or assumed. But, ha- you know what they say about assuming, and-”

“Hunk,” Shiro said patiently. Hunk looked up from his teacup, which he was choking in his grip. Shiro didn’t look angry, or weirded out by Hunk’s rambling and odd premonition. He looked amused. “Did you have a nightmare too?” 

Hunk breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah. It was, um. It was bad.” Shiro nodded.

“Mine too,” he said quietly. He flexed the fingers of his prosthetic arm, his gaze fixed on it. Hunk remembered the pain from the dream, the glow of the witch’s eyes, the brief attempts at dissociation. He watched Shiro’s fingers run along where the seam of the metal must have been. 

_Broken, damaged, failure-_

Hunk furrowed his brow. He was overwhelmed with emotion, rolling over his consciousness like a tidal wave. He was suddenly fiercely sad - no, more than sad. This was downright _dark_ , eclipsing everything that Hunk thought he knew about himself.

_A monster, a burden-_

He looked up from Shiro’s arm to his face and saw a deep line in his forehead, his eyebrows knit together in pain. His face had gone pallid and his lips were pressed into a thin line, and his breath was shallow. A thin gloss of sweat was beginning to shimmer at his temples and his jaw clenched rhythmically. Hunk knew his own emotions. He was very open about them, never hid anything from himself or his teammates. These feelings, he knew, weren’t his own.

_Fuck up-_

_Ruined-_

_Better without me-_

“You’re a great leader, Shiro,” Hunk blurted before he could stop himself. The black paladin looked up sharply, his eyes focusing on Hunk with the singular concentration that Hunk had come to expect from Shiro. “We wouldn’t be able to do any of this without you, and not just because you’re the literal head of Voltron,” he babbled. He didn’t know why he felt like he needed to tell Shiro these things. He didn’t know, but he could feel it mitigating the dark thoughts that were running through his mind. He certainly wasn’t used to them; he considered himself a pretty laid-back guy, and that kind of internal discourse was a surprise to him, and he wasn’t quite sure how to deal with it. Maybe saying nice things about his teammates? He _did_  enjoy cheering them up.

“You keep us all together. I think we’d all fight too much if you weren’t here. I mean, maybe not, because Lance and Keith have been fine lately, but Pidge would definitely try to hack the universe and become our next queen and I’m not sure the stars are ready for _her_ -”

“Hunk.”

“Yeah?” He winced, expecting Shiro to punch him or something, despite the fact that it would be completely out of character. He looked up at him and blinked - not in surprise, exactly. Shiro’s expression had softened so much that Hunk hoped he wouldn’t start weeping - he couldn’t handle tears. Well, he could handle his own tears, and Lance’s, and Pidge’s, but Shiro didn’t cry. Not that he was incapable, of course, unless the Galra had removed his tear ducts, but that would be a weird thing to do.

Shiro interrupted his wayward thoughts with a soft chuckle. Hunk smiled nervously, rubbing the back of his head. He exhaled quietly under Shiro’s warm gaze, relieved when those overwhelmingly black emotions began to recede, falling back and fading from his mind. 

“Thanks, Hunk. You’re a good friend,” he said quietly, sincerely. Warmth bloomed in Hunk at the praise and consideration, and he felt his cheeks heat up. Shiro downed the last of his tea and stood. He circled the table and put a hand - his prosthetic, he noted - on Hunk’s shoulder. “I’m glad I didn’t have to sit alone tonight.” 

Hunk briefly toyed with the idea of telling Shiro about the details of his nightmare, but he felt that might be too invasive. He still wasn’t sure why he’d shared Shiro’s dream, but dreams were private things. He shouldn’t have been in Shiro’s dream, but there was nothing to be done about it now except keeping what he saw and felt to himself. The things he saw, those memories - they weren’t his to share. He didn’t think that now would be an appropriate time to say,  _‘Hey Shiro, my Tragedy Senses were tingling and I knew exactly where you were and that’s why I showed up. Oh, also, you’ve got some deep shit going on in your head, buddy.’_

By the time Hunk turned around to tell him none of that, nope, just a simple ‘you’re welcome’, Shiro was gone. He’d be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t a little relieved, but then Shiro had always been very good at knowing exactly what his teammates needed. He turned back to his cup of tea, which had gone tepid. He hunched his shoulders, trying not to think too hard about what had happened and the absolute weirdness of it all. He finished off the tea and put both cups in the ship’s version of a dishwasher. He sat back down for a few moments, attempting to collect his thoughts and calm his mind enough to allow him to go back to sleep eventually. 

_Family, family, they’re family-_

_I’m so grateful-_

_Have to try for them-_

Hunk straightened as the thoughts flooded into him, accompanied by a deep warmth that wrapped around his head and chest, prickling behind his eyes and making his throat tight. They weren’t quite words; it was more like a series of elaborately detailed thoughts that he could interpret, not unlike the way Yellow communicated with him. He found himself smiling unwittingly, and he thought that it wasn’t just his own contentment that tightened his muscles. 

\---

If Hunk thought the night before that his inadvertent trip through Shiro’s head was a one-time thing, he was proved wrong the very next day. 

As he ate his morning food goo, he caught flashes of emotions and thoughts that weren’t his own. His thoughts were on the goo and how it wasn’t a continental breakfast, and definitely not on training. Yet there those thoughts were, red hot and pushing through his mind with someone else’s adrenaline. 

_Level seven, almost there-_

_I’ll beat Shiro next time-_

_Wow, I need a shower-_

Hunk’s eyes grew distant as he listened to the stream of thoughts that he guessed belonged to Keith. Mostly lots of cursing; he seemed to be on the training deck, though why he wanted to be there that early was beyond Hunk’s scope of comprehension. Over the years, he’d grown an appreciation for the training deck - it was inevitable, when so much of what they did was combat-based. But he thought Keith and Shiro spent a little too much time there than was healthy. 

_Need a palm-_

_That doesn’t look anything like flesh-_

_Weaponized plant bombs-_

And that had to be Pidge. _What_  was she working on? Hunk shook his head, unsure that he wanted to know. She’d been holed up in her hangar with Green and Audrey the demon plant, which she had designed a small, enclosed greenhouse for and set it on a floating base to follow her around. It still made Keith a little nervous, but Hunk thought it was amusing. 

A fresh wave of curse words from Pidge (holy crow, she was _filthy_ , where did she even learn those words? That definitely wasn’t a human language) filtered through his mind, distracting him. He was staring rather intently into his bowl of food goo when Lance walked into the kitchen, stretching and yawning dramatically. Hunk looked up at his friend and smiled.

“Morning, buddy,” Lance said, scratching at the overnight growth of stubble on his face. 

_Finally have to shave, take that, Keith-_

_Allura’s face cream is great-_

_Ow, my back-_

Typical morning complaints; Hunk wasn’t at all surprised that the things that Lance thought were just about the same things he voiced to his friends whenever he thought they were listening. It was less disturbing to Hunk to hear Lance’s thoughts - he’d been able to look at him and predict his actions long before they flew to space in Blue. As Lance served himself some goo, he was humming a little song under his breath, and the lyrics in his head filtered right to Hunk. He coughed a little as the lyrics gained clarity - this song was vulgar. He groaned. _Lance, why..._

“Hey, Lance, you know how Pidge can like, talk to plants now?” Hunk began.

“Yeah, and she rubs it in our faces that she has some special abilities and we don’t yet,” Lance grumbled with a scowl, flopping down hard at the table. Hunk took a deep breath. If there was anyone he could talk to about this, who wouldn’t think he’s crazy, it was Lance. 

“So you haven’t noticed anything, uh, power-y, yet?” he ventured. Lance shrugged.

“I’m not an overnight waterbender, if that’s what you mean. So far as I know, that little demon is the only one who can do anything _special_ ,” Lance said. Despite his words, there was only great affection in his voice.

_Little shit-_

_Proud of her-_

_Just like Mari-_

Hunk ducked his head and smiled. If Lance was comparing Pidge to his youngest sister, then he must care for her a great deal. He knew how much Lance missed his family, though if this was what he thought it might be, he might come to know more about them than than he ever thought possible.

“-do you ask?” Hunk snapped his head up, looking at Lance. “Are you even listening, dude?” the blue paladin asked. Hunk furrowed his brow, trying to figure out he was going to tell Lance that he _was_  listening, just not to the words coming out of his mouth. 

Just then, the door slid open and Keith walked in. He’d shed his red jacket and was soaked in sweat, his hair swept up into a high ponytail. He pushed his bangs out of his face and looked at his teammates. 

“Oh, morning guys,” he said, his features softening.

_Dios mio-_

_What the fuck is up with that ponytail-_

_Should be illegal-_

_Are there laws in space?_

_I bet his legs would look good on my shou-_

“Holy shit, I’ve got to go, _now_ ,” Hunk all but squeaked, his eyes going wide as he shoved back from the table and scrambled out of his seat. Lance’s rapid-fire thought process was, mercifully, interrupted by Hunk’s sudden terror. 

“Uh, dude-” Lance began, rising from his seat in concern. Hunk held up his hands in front of him.

“I’m okay, really, I just have to get out of here before literally _anything else_  comes across, because I can’t deal with this right after I eat,” Hunk babbled. He knew he was probably making less than no sense to his friends, but he offered them a wobbly grin. Keith blinked owlishly at him as he backed away from the table. 

“Are you sure you-”

“Yeahyeah,” Hunk blurted. “Super cool. A thousand percent cool. I’ve just - ah, I’ve got to be somewhere else like, ten seconds ago.” Keith furrowed his brow, swiveling his head to look at Lance and shrug.

 _Or maybe my legs on_ his _-_

“OKAY, BYE GUYS!” Hunk shouted, nearly tripping over his own feet to flee the room. He could hear Lance calling something after him, but he had thrown his hands up to cover his ears in a futile attempt to block out whatever other filthy thoughts Lance seemed so intent on thinking. He hurried to Green’s hangar, hoping to find Pidge. Maybe she had some insight as to what was going on, since her abilities had emerged first. He turned a corner and nearly ran into Coran.

“Hello, Hunk!” he said brightly. His blue eyes crinkled to almost nothing as he beamed, seemingly thrilled about another day. Hunk suppressed a groan - of course it was easy to be happy when one didn’t have their teammates now living in one’s head. 

“Hey, Coran,” he answered, significantly less jubilantly than the Altean. Coran tilted his head, looking like he was getting ready to ask Hunk what was bothering him, when Hunk’s eyes widened and he reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Coran!” The man in question blinked rapidly.

“ _Yes?_ ” he drawled. 

“What ability did the last yellow paladin have?” Coran blinked again, and then his face split into a wide grin, his mustache bristling.

“Oh-ho, has our little Hunk experienced an _awakening_ , hmm?” Coran asked with a leer, clasping his hands behind his back and bending at the waist, grinning slyly. Hunk chewed on his lip, long since unfazed by Coran’s inability to recognize personal boundaries. 

“Maybe, I- I don’t know. I don’t even know what I should be looking out for,” he said somewhat quietly. He could feel the weight of this new ability, this new responsibility, settling onto his shoulders and pressing down on him fully now. He thought, at first, that last night with Shiro had been a fluke, and he’d been too tired this morning to fully process that he was literally _hearing_  his teammate’s _thoughts_ , until Lance (good old perverted Lance, thanks buddy) had sent him into a panic. His eyebrows knit together and his mouth was tugged down into a rare frown. He looked up when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Coran was looking at him with a soft, understanding look on his face, and Hunk felt a little more at ease for it. 

“Walk with me, hm?” he asked. Hunk nodded, feeling small and immeasurably young again under Coran’s gaze. He kept his eyes locked on the floor as they walked, unsure and somewhat afraid. He could deal with war - it had been his life for the past four years. Battle was normal for him, and he knew by now how to control it and turn the tide in his favour. He even took a grim sort of pleasure in it - that had frightened him too, at first. But this was so vastly different. War was something humans were used to. Fight or flight was so ingrained in him, an instinct drilled into humanity since it realised that there were bigger, stronger, faster things in the dark. No instinct he had was able to prepare him for what _this_  was. This was nearly magic, something no human had ever experienced before. 

“How is it manifesting for you?” Coran asked, gently drawing Hunk out of his head. 

“I - I can hear their thoughts. I shared Shiro’s dream last night and saw some _shit_. Like holy crow, that dude - how does he even function? And then I was hearing his thoughts and man, he needs a hug, okay?” Hunk was babbling, the words leaving him in a rush, but did it ever feel good to unload. “And then this morning I could hear everyone else. And at first it was just little fragments, but it’s been getting clearer all day and let me tell you what, Lance is a pig, and I definitely ran away from them,” he finished lamely. Coran stroked his mustache.

“Can you hear them now?” Hunk sighed, shaking his head.

“No, but I think my internal meltdown is overriding them at the moment,” he said miserably. “How am I gonna block them out?” 

“Practice, I’d assume. It seems that it’s developing rapidly; we can’t use Pidge as a point of reference, as her abilities could have been present for quite a while before she came into contact with the plant. With time, I’m sure you’ll be able to filter through what you want to hear, when you want to hear it,” Coran guessed. 

“As for your previous question, the most recent yellow paladin before yourself could calm people with a single touch. She was always a very calming presence among the other paladins, and they all gravitated toward her naturally. She was critical, in fact, in preventing more than one war,” he said, his eyes going distant and a little wistful. “She was able to clear people’s heads and allow them to think without the cloud of anger. She was present in nearly every diplomatic trip for this gift.”

“That would be so much better to have,” Hunk groaned. “Instead, I get to listen to what Lance wants to do with Keith. Ugh.” He wrinkled his nose. Coran chuckled.

“I think once you gain some measure of control over it, you’ll be grateful for it. It sounds incredibly useful!” he mused. “Perhaps one of the others would be willing to help you learn to block them out, or, conversely, to tune into their thoughts and feelings. Shiro would be willing, I think.” Hunk looked at Coran abruptly. 

“Shiro has seen some pretty brutal stuff, Coran. I doubt he’d want me rooting too deep through that,” he said skeptically. 

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Coran said as he rubbed his chin. “He’s lived through some nightmares, to be sure, but he’s never lied about them when asked. He holds you in very high regard, Hunk. It can’t hurt to ask,” he said sagely. Hunk blinked at him; the tight feeling in his chest hadn’t gone away, but he did feel a little more at ease after talking with Coran. He was distracted from his thoughts by a low purring reverberating through his core. He looked up and saw that they were in Yellow’s hangar. His lion was curled up, tail wrapped around herself, head resting on her paws, staring at him intently. He definitely felt lighter now, in Yellow’s presence. He stepped up to her and rested a hand on her giant metal paw.

“These abilities - they bring you closer to your lions. It can only strengthen your bond, and make you a better paladin,” Coran said from behind him. Hunk gazed up at Yellow. For the past two years, Pidge and Green maintained the highest sync rate out of all the paladins, much to Lance’s vocal and dramatic disappointment. He wondered if the paradigm would shift with the emergence of these abilities.

“Who out of the old paladins was closest to their lion?” he asked distractedly. There was no answer from Coran at first, prompting Hunk to turn around. Coran was staring at Yellow, his gaze unfocused and very far away.

“The blue paladin, Corinna. She was closer to the blue lion than she was.. to almost anyone else,” he said quietly. Hunk’s eyes widened. That was the first time either Coran or Allura had mentioned the name of one of the previous paladins. He nearly asked more about the blue paladin, but Coran was walking away, his footsteps echoing softly in the hangar. 

\---

Hunk took a deep breath, standing outside of Shiro’s door. He clenched his eyes shut and attempted to focus solely on Shiro’s thoughts and feelings. 

_Get everyone together tomorrow morning-_

_New form I want to try-_

So far, so good. He knocked on Shiro’s door. He heard a muffled command of ‘Open’ from within, the the castle responded, the door sliding open. The leader of the paladins lounged on his bed with a datapad in his hand, no doubt going over those new forms he wanted to try. He looked up, smiling broadly when he saw Hunk.

“Hey Hunk, what’s up?” he asked. 

“Um, can we talk?” he mumbled. Shiro’s expression became a little more serious at Hunk’s tone, and he set his datapad down on the desk beside him. He sat up and patted the bed next to him. Hunk shuffled into the room and sat down very gingerly beside Shiro. He tucked his hands between his thighs and clenched them together.

“Something’s bothering you,” Shiro said calmly, keeping his voice carefully even. 

_Scaramouche, scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?_

Hunk winced. Lance...

“You could say that,” he muttered. Shiro waited patiently, his elbows on his knees. Hunk breathed in deeply, exhaled a shaky breath, and launched into explaining whatever was going on with him as best as he could. He knew he probably wasn’t making any sense, but he did the best he could with Lance bombarding his brain with an admittedly excellent rendition of ‘Whenever, Wherever’. When he spoke of sharing Shiro’s dream, the other paladin froze, his pupils narrowing to pinpricks. He explained how the shared dream drove him to seek Shiro out, and how he could hear those dark thoughts that kept Shiro up at night. How he could hear _all_  of the paladins, though he delicately glossed over the details of Lance and Keith’s thighs and the placement of them because he was just not ready for that conversation. 

Shiro absorbed it all with the typical cool collection that he was so known for. When Hunk finally stopped speaking, staring down at his feet, Shiro put his hand on Hunk’s shoulder. 

“Would you like to know what I think?” he asked. Hunk looked up at him and nodded minutely. “I think you’ve got an incredible gift, and I’m glad it’s you that’s got it.”

“Why?” Hunk asked, bewildered. He knew better than to say that he wasn’t anything special; that usually brought the full paternal wrath of Shiro down upon him. In truth, Shiro wasn’t much older than Hunk himself, but there was something about the way he carried himself that made Hunk think of Shiro as a great papa bear. 

“Because nothing in this universe could make you abuse that gift,” Shiro said warmly. “Coran was right. Only practice is going to help you with this. I’ll work with you as often as you need until you can control all of this.” Hunk could feel a smile creeping across his face.

“You will?” Shiro grinned, squeezing his shoulder.

“Of course I will. I’ll just have to apologise in advance for the shitshow that is-” he waved a hand by his temple. Hunk chuckled, his cheeks heating up somewhat. He’d already gotten a sneak peek at a few of Shiro’s memories - they weren’t pretty, that was true. But the sooner he learned to block everything out, the sooner he wouldn’t have to delve into Shiro’s brain anymore. 

“You don’t have to apologise for anything, Shiro. I appreciate this,” Hunk said sincerely. 

_Starships were meant to fly, hands up and touch the sky-_

Hunk groaned and dropped his head into his hands.

“Can we start now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh the response to this has been amazing, i am so thankful for all of you. 
> 
> ~~im tracking 'let it burst' on tumblr~~ NO I AM NOT THAT TAG IS FILLED WITH PORN PLEASE DON'T USE THAT TAG. i'm tracking 'fic: let it burst' and i will see anything you put in those tags, and u can see the trash i rebagel at [sammythemattressthief](http://www.sammythemattressthief.tumblr.com). 
> 
> thank you so much for reading this garbage! as always, this isn't beta'd, so any mistakes are mine. if you'd like to beta for me, i feel bad for you but u get to read stuff before anyone else, so~
> 
> *title brought to you this chapter by Alice in Chains.


	3. Poor Atlas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance still hasn't managed to shut up, of course. But he will, eventually, and absolutely no one wants it this way.

Lance stared at Hunk intently, singing Barbie Girl as loudly as he could at him. Keith and Pidge sat near him, probably thinking about stupid haircuts and universal domination. Hunk stared right past them at a point between Lance and Pidge, his eyes unfocused and nearly crossed. Allura sat beside Hunk, legs folded beneath her, arm on the back of the couch and chin on her fist, studying the yellow paladin as he trained.

“Focus on your mother, Hunk,” she reminded him gently. Hunk chewed on his lip and nodded tersely, his eyes regaining some measure of focus as he called his mother to the forefront of his mind. He loved Lance, sure, but he was definitely a momma’s boy, so it wasn’t too difficult to block out Lance’s screeching.

Lance watched it happen; he could nearly see the wall falling into place as Hunk successfully blocked them out.

“Holy crow, I missed the silence,” Hunk muttered as he slumped down next to Allura. Pidge rolled her eyes.

“Oh please, it’s been three months. It can’t be that bad,” she said, without venom. Hunk pouted at her.

“Oh sure, it’s easy for you to say. You have Audrey and I’m sure it’s great, polite company,” he said. Pidge smirked.

“Yeah, it is. Nice and quiet half the time,” she said fondly. Hunk gestured to her.

“Uh-huh, that’s what I mean! You don’t get super inappropriate thoughts from _someone else’s head_ rattling through your consciousness,” he fired back. Lance bit back the urge to cough and hoped that his ears weren’t turning too red. He knew Hunk wouldn’t say anything, though - Hunk was his best friend in the entire universe, and entirely too polite for that kind of gossiping. 

“Well, are you hearing anything else from them?” Allura asked, glancing at Keith, who was the only one actively thinking anything at Hunk at this point. Hunk shook his head, a relieved smile on his face. 

“Nope, not even an impression,” he said. “And it’s not that hard, either. Like, I’m not maintaining anything. Their thoughts just aren’t there.” Allura beamed at him.

“Excellent, Hunk!” She looked at the others. “Now, let’s reverse this process with a little more finesse, shall we? Try to open yourself again, but only to Keith,” she instructed. 

Lance shifted his eyes over to Keith, who had had his eyes closed through the whole exercise. The red paladin furrowed his brow a little and thinned his lips into a line, focusing his thoughts at Hunk. He flicked his gaze to Pidge to make sure that she wasn’t watching, waiting for a chance to pounce on him like a damn harpy and tease him. Fortunately, she was focused on Hunk as well, and so Lance allowed himself to look back at Keith (covertly, of course). He couldn’t help that his lip curled just a little. He wondered what Keith’s ability would be. Probably super strength, or firebreathing. Would that make his mouth hot? _Oh_ , he hoped so.

Hunk groaned and dropped his head into his hand.

 _Heh, sorry buddy,_ Lance thought. He chuckled to himself and tried to focus on something a little cleaner, like the Barney theme song. He thought it at Hunk as loudly as he could, and he was halfway through the Bubble Guppies theme when Hunk leapt off the couch, cheering his own success.

“Were you successful?” Allura asked. 

“I mean, as long as Pidge and Lance didn’t stop, then yeah. I couldn’t hear them at all, only Keith!” he said excitedly. Allura clapped her hands together.

“That’s wonderful, Hunk! Now it should be easy for you to keep them blocked and open yourself to them at your leisure. This is going to be incredibly useful when the five of you can’t afford to so much as whisper through your comm-links,” she said. Hunk looked at his friends thoughtfully.

“I hadn’t thought about it that way,” he said. Allura nodded. 

“I’m sure that eventually, you’ll be able to focus on their thoughts more completely and receive reports from them from wherever they may be,” she guessed. Hunk paled a little at that.

“I don’t know if I want to be that important,” he muttered. Allura frowned, and Lance squinted at Hunk.

“What do you mean, Hunk? You’re already that important,” Lance argued, a little more loudly than was necessary. 

“Lance is right. Voltron cannot be without you, Hunk. You’re no less important than anyone else on this ship,” the princess said as she stood. She rested a hand on his shoulder. “And your ability makes you more of your own person. Own it, and none can ever say that you’re less than your team in any capacity.” 

Lance flopped back onto the couch opposite Hunk and Allura, pouting.

“When do you think the rest of us will notice something magic-y?” he whined. “It’s been months. When am I going to be shooting ice beams out of my eyes?”

“I’m not sure, Lance,” Allura said with a shrug. “And there’s no way to tell what your ability will be. I will say, though, that the previous blue paladin was the last to attain her abilities, and they proved somewhat... troublesome.” Lance sat up, and even Keith and Pidge turned curious eyes to the princess. They took seats on either side of Lance, leaning forward and gazing at the princess expectantly.

“Story time, princess!” Lance teased, fitting his chin into his palms. Allura smiled, though she seemed a little tense about the subject. 

“She had an incredible bond with the blue lion, but hers was the last ability to manifest. It caused quite a lot of trouble before she learned to control it.” She paused, allowed herself to appear somewhat wistful. “I was older when her abilities presented, so I remember quite well. She could... liquefy herself. Simply dematerialize into water.”

Lance and Pidge gaped at her, and Hunk choked on his cup of water. Even Keith’s eyes were wide.

“What about her clothes and bayard?” Keith asked. 

“Even those. A paladin’s armour is unique, as is their bayard. Both respond, on some level, to the subconscious of the paladin. That’s why, at first, all of your bayards only had one shape,” she explained.

“Why was it an issue? That sounds so badass!” Lance said. 

“Because when it first manifested, no one could find her for two days. She existed as a puddle in the corner of the training deck until she managed to reassemble herself,” Allura said with a small smile. “In retrospect, it is rather amusing. At the time, though, it was very unsettling. It didn’t take her long to learn to control it, but we were all very careful to not step in puddles from then on.”

“So is that what’s going to happen to me? I’ll just be in the middle of kicking Keith’s ass one day-”

“As if,” Keith muttered.

“-and just collapse into water and stay that way until I can figure it out?” Lance could hear his voice escalating just slightly. “I like to swim but I don’t want to _be_ the water!” He felt Keith shift next to him, could feel the heat from his body a little more acutely. He tried to focus on that instead of getting stuck as a puddle indefinitely. 

“I doubt it,” Allura said slowly, calmly. “Pidge and Hunk both have completely different skillsets than the previous paladins. The abilities seem to be unique to each of you, and in a way, reflect your personalities. When your ability comes through, I’m sure it will feel like it’s always been a part of you.” Pidge nodded, throwing an arm around Lance’s shoulders.

“She’s right. It kind of feels like I was always meant to do this- this, whatever it is I can do with plants,” she said, waving her other hand. “I’m looking forward to finding another planet with more plants, to test myself further.”

“You’ll get your chance soon, Pidge,” Allura said with a smirk. “We’ve received a request for help from a planet that’s been resisting the Galra for quite some time. They believe there’s a spy among their council, and they’ve requested our assistance in extraction and interrogation. We’ll arrive tomorrow.” Pidge’s eyes glittered in a way that made Lance twitchy.

“Oh, good,” she purred. Pidge was a terrifying interrogator, they’d discovered. And of course, she’d matured over the years, and was very far from unattractive by any standard. She had long dark lashes, short, wild hair, and a proclivity for lulling people into a false sense of security with her adorable face before she made even seasoned, vicious Galra soldiers cry for their mothers. She and Keith would often team up for the Voltron edition of good cop, bad cop, except it was more like bad cop, scary bad cop. Pidge was the latter, and none ever saw it coming. Lance almost felt bad for the spy. 

Pidge twisted to her feet, stretching her arms above her head. She muttered something about going to her hangar to work, but Lance wasn’t really focusing on her. He absently waved to Allura when she left, and grunted noncommittally to Hunk when the latter mentioned cooking something in a little while. He was so concentrated on what it would be like to exist for a week as a puddle of water that he ignored Keith snapping his fingers in front of his face for a few seconds. He blinked up at him.

“Heh, sorry, man. When you’re as smart as I am-”

“Save it, Lance,” Keith interjected, not unkindly. “You probably won’t get washed down your shower drain tonight, so you can chill,” he said, rolling to his feet, his thigh brushing against Lance’s as he rose. “Whatever your ability is, it’ll show eventually. Just maybe not before mine does,” he said with a smirk, winking down at Lance. Lance’s eyebrows knit together, but he grinned as he launched himself to his feet.

“As if, pretty boy! My ability is going to manifest so hard, you won’t be able to move!” he challenged. Keith’s smirk softened, and he clapped a hand to Lance’s shoulder. 

“If you say so, buddy. See you on the training deck later?” he asked. Lance nodded.

“I think I can squeeze you into my _super busy_ schedule,” he said dramatically. Keith rolled his eyes, but the smile didn’t leave his face as he walked away. Lance tried to ignore the the way his heart had escalated its beat without his express permission, tried not to stare at Keith’s sinfully pert ass as he left the lounge. 

Lance shook his head and decided to mosey back to his room for some old fashioned, head clearing yoga. He thought about pestering Pidge, but she was working on something big, according to Hunk, who was helping her with it. The two were surprisingly tight lipped about it, but Lance knew better than to bother the green paladin when she was absorbed in a project. He liked all of his limbs right where they were, thanks.

He changed into a pair of sleek blue leggings and threw on a black tank top before stretching with some basic sun salutations and warrior poses. Once he felt sufficiently warm, he dropped to the floor and contorted his body into an eight-angle, and lifted himself up. He held the position for ten seconds longer than his previous record, and by the time he lowered himself again, his shoulder muscles were screaming at him and a thin sheen of sweat had painted itself across his body. He worked his way through several more advanced poses, including a Halasana that would make a nun sweat. He was just settling into his favourite part of yoga, corpse pose, when Shiro poked is head through Lance’s door.

“Sleeping?” he teased. Lance tilted his head back to look at Shiro.

“Yoga,” he said. “Beat last month’s eight-angle time.”

“Good! You’ll have to show us that one sometime,” Shiro said. Lance grinned up at him.

“Sure thing, chief.”

“Anyway, Allura wants to see us. She said she’s got information about the planet we’ll be helping tomorrow,” Shiro said. Lance agilely twisted to his feet and followed Shiro out of his room, opting to continue barefoot instead of wasting time with shoes. 

“So what’s this planet called, anyway?” he asked.

“Calrex, I think,” Shiro responded. “I don’t know anything else, but Allura said she wanted to share something pertinent about the inhabitants. Apparently they’re... different,” he said mildly.

“They’re aliens,” Lance said, rolling his eyes. “None of them are normal. Or even normal-ish. I think the last ones that were even passably normal were the Lenetians, and they were literally lizards pretending to be human.” Shiro chuckled, recalling the reptilian race clearly. They were allies now, but they were definitely odd. They arrived at the bridge of the castleship to see that everyone else was already there, though they were just settling into their seats. Allura and Coran stood by the holoscreen, speaking quietly to one another. The other paladins shifted to watch Shiro and Lance enter the room.

“Finally,” Pidge sighed. She stretched her legs out, slouching down in her seat. “I’m _dying_ to know what’s so weird about these things that Allura had to call a conference.” Lance hurried to his seat and clambered over the armrests, just as eager as Pidge. After Shiro had made his way to his control seat, Allura waved a hand and pulled up a holoscreen. A bright white city surrounded by a river and a field of what looked to be crops of some sort illuminated the room.

“Human impatience,” she mumbled affectionately. “The planet Calrex is a fairly standard planet by any means. Its geography is fairly unobtrusive and plain, with no flora or fauna that will try to do us harm.”

“Little miracles,” Keith said quietly. Pidge snorted, not unkindly, and Keith stuck his tongue out at her. Lance watched with a smirk on his face, his blue eyes narrowing playfully -

Hunk groaned, tipping his head down into his hand. “Lance-” The blue paladin let out a nervous chuckle, silently apologising to Hunk before clearing his throat and turning back to focus very solely on Allura. 

“The Calrexans themselves, however, are the cause for this meeting.” She waved her hand again and the image on the holoscreen changed. Lance’s eyes widened as he took in the image before him. The creature on the screen was humanoid, that much was clear. Tall, slender, with sloping shoulders that gave it an oval shape and arms that extended to the middle of its legs. Lance supposed there were knees, maybe, but there was no distinction or curves to the legs whatsoever. Its head was smooth and hairless, with sunken yellow eyes and a hooked nose. Its mouth was lipless as far as he could tell, and it barely had any chin at all. Its physique was strange enough, to be sure, but the most startling feature was that liquid coursed over its entire body. There seemed to be a thin layer of skin like wet brown tissue paper that hid - organs? bones? confetti? - whatever was inside of it, but that was very clearly beneath at least an inch of constantly moving, thickly opaque liquid. 

“What the fuck,” Pidge said slowly, not moving from her slouched position. Her face, however, mirrored Lance and Hunk’s - they all wore an expression of confused terror. 

“A Calrexan’s blood is thick, viscous, nearly see-through, and it flows on the outside of their body, acting as a shield in addition to sustaining their life,” Allura explained. “They don’t leave footprints of this blood, nor will it transfer to any surface they touch. It has never been explained; if their doctors know anything about their own physiology, which I’m sure they do, they’ve never cared to share their secrets.”

“Which has served them well,” Coran added. “The Galra have been unable to develop a standard issue weapon that can damage them with enough of an impact to take over.”

“Why haven’t they just blown up the planet?” Keith asked.

“There must be something on the planet that the Galra aren’t willing to destroy,” Shiro mused, rubbing at his chin. Coran smiled grimly.

“Precisely. Below the surface of the planet, amidst the rock, are great concentrations of anitmatter. The Galra want this as an alternate source of power,” he said.

“What about quintessence?” Lance asked.

“If they obliterate too many planets, what have they to rule?” Allura asked bitterly. “What leverage have they got? They gather a planet’s quintessence sparingly, despite the benefits it grants the druids. The antimatter could be processed in a way that the finished product greatly resembles quintessence in its abilities,” she said. 

“So what’s stopped them from going in with ion cannons and wiping out the entire population?” Pidge wondered.

“The Calrexans are famously strong, physically speaking. A kelgak of them could lift this castle,” Allura said. “Coupled with their blood resistance, it is nearly impossible to take them down with a force of ground troops.”

“And they don’t want to risk damaging the planet because of the antimatter,” Hunk said. Allura nodded. “So that’s why they’ve resisted so well for so long. What do they need us for, then?”

“They believe one of their own has defected to the Galra. The small council worries that he will give himself up for experimentation, enabling the Galra to dismantle them, so to say, and figure a way to penetrate their blood resistance and take them out,” Allura said. “If they can do that, they can-”

“Reverse engineer armour out of it,” Pidge said solemnly. “Shit.”

“Do they know who it may be?” Shiro asked.

“They believe they do, but they didn’t want to risk a communication breach. We’ll be arriving tomorrow morning, so I would suggest rest.” Allura eyed Keith and Pidge with amusement. “And perhaps a little practicing in your diplomacy.” Keith and Pidge grinned sheepishly at one another; neither were exactly known for their level-headedness in delicate negotiations. Lance stood and stretched, bending backwards at an impossible angle. 

“I’m already smooth, so I think I’ll just hit the sack,” he declared loudly. He straightened back up just as Hunk let out a distressed cry and jolted out of his seat. 

“You all are the worst,” he grumbled without venom, slumping from the room with his hands over his ears. Lance watched him go, one eyebrow quirked upward. He glanced back at his teammates, prepared to shrug, but they were all staring at him, even Allura and Coran were staring. Pidge and Keith were smirking and Shiro looked so very exasperated. 

“What are you all looking at me for?” he pouted. “I’m not _always_  singing dirty songs, yanno,” he grumbled. Mouth fixed in a perfect moue, he stalked from the room, though his body had no true agitation in its posture. He’d long ago given up on staying angry or irritated with his fellow paladins for trivial things like teasing. He knew it was all in good fun, and he gave as good as he got. It was like trying to stay angry with his littlest sister; his teammates could be goons, but they were his goons, and there was no sense arguing with them over trifles. 

As he prepared his armour for the next day, he tried very hard not to think of Mari. _No sense being sad either, Lance,_  he told himself.

(What a liar.)

\---

The great city that housed the small council was simply called The City. Great buildings of some glimmering, porous white stone thrust upwards toward the sky, which was blue and something of a comfort to the paladins. Some of the buildings were tall and narrow, others were slender and arched over and under one another, creating tunnels and bridges similar to cholla wood. Great sections of the city were brightly coloured - painted with reds, golds, greens, yellows, and blues in wide, streaking murals that didn’t seem to depict anything so much as they were used to break up the whiteness. The streets were made of the same white stone, polished to a shine that probably would have blinded them if there had been sunlight. Or any sun at all, really - the planet didn’t seem to have one. All of the light seemed to emanate from the stark whiteness of the stone. 

The castle remained in orbit, and the paladins had flown their lions down to the designated landing plot just outside The City. Allura accompanied them, and Coran and the mice remained in the castle to monitor things from there. Upon their exit from their lions, they were greeted by two of the strange Calrexans, along with a hose of what they assumed to be were guards. The inhabitants of the planet did not wear clothes, and Lance supposed there wasn’t much of a reason for clothes or armour if their weird.. blood... shell thing protected them. The guards carried no weapons, just stood tall and imposing behind two others. The first was taller and looked older, if there were such a way for a humanoid blob of mud to achieve that. He was taller even than Shiro, and he looked down his long, hooked nose at the black paladin. The second Calrexan was slightly shorter and stood just a step behind the first. His yellow eyes were wider and he leaned forward inquisitively.

“We greet and welcome you, honoured paladins,” the first spoke. His sharp yellow eyes softened and his lipless mouth stretched into a smile. Lance thought it was creepy as hell, but it was a smile, which was better than a face full of lasers. “I am Asid, High Chancellor of the small council. This is my son, Felan’is.” He gestured with one long, sticky looking arm to the Calrexan behind him. He certainly had a younger countenance to him, and he smiled widely, revealing that there were no teeth within his mouth.

“Welcome, paladins!” he said excitedly. He rolled up onto the balls of his feet with his hands clasped behind his back, tilting his head curiously. Undaunted, Shiro stepped forward and held out his hand. 

“Thank you, High Chancellor. It’s an honour,” he said smoothly, a polite smile fixed on his face. Asid reached out and shook Shiro’s hand, maintaining eye contact. When they broke apart, Shiro simply let his hand fall to his side. This seemed to please Asid, for he smiled a little more broadly. “My name is Shiro, and the others are Lance, Hunk, Pidge, Keith, and Princess Allura of Altea,” the black paladin introduced. 

“Words cannot express how grateful we are for your assistance in this matter,” Asid said. He spread his hands. “We welcome you to Calrex, and we welcome the end of this trouble.”

“I can only imagine how terrifying it must be to have resisted for so long only to have a spy infiltrate your ranks now,” Allura said. “We will do all we can to assist you.” Asid sighed in relief.

“That is good to hear, my Princess,” he said quietly. “Please, let us hasten back to the Central Palace. I hope that you will forgive my hastiness, but we haven’t any time to tarry.”

“Certainly,” Allura said graciously. “There will be far more time for pleasantries once we’ve dealt with the spy.”

\---

Not even an hour later, the paladins and Princess Allura were seated at the small council table with Asid and Felan’is, along with the other three members of the small council. Mersal, Senesh, and Jerhan greeted the paladins and Princess Allura just as warmly as Asid. Allura sat demurely at the table, her hands upon its polished white surface, one hand resting on her own wrist.

“Forgive my impertinence, High Chancellor, councilmen, but I am getting the feeling that things are far more progressed than we imagined,” she said diplomatically. Asid placed his hands upon the table as well, and Lance marveled again at how no marks were left behind by his... ooze. The viscous liquid flowed all over his body continuously, making no sound whatsoever. It looked thick, like glue, opaque enough to see the thin brown shell beneath it all. It was weird. Super weird. Four hundred weird. Weirder than Pidge’s plant thing, weirder than-

Hunk nudged him with his elbow. 

He blinked back up at Asid. 

“You are correct, Princess. Things have worsened considerably in such a short time,” he said sadly. “We are certain the spy is on the large council. He is Calrexan, like us. No Galra could possibly match our strength, and their conventional weapons cannot harm us. You must understand something about our species, Princess. We..” Felan’is placed his hand on his father’s long, sloping shoulder.

“We are a very long lived race, similar to the Alteans, you see,” he said. “We have laws in place, ancient laws that we hold to very strictly. We are forbidden from researching any aspect of our own physiology.”

“The elders of our race are wise,” Senesh said sagely. 

“You don’t want to understand how your bodies work for fear of someone, like the Galra, using it against you,” Pidge supplied.

“Or anyone else,” Jerhan said with a nod. 

“But the druids of the Galra can bypass our millennia of willful ignorance, tear us apart and build our bodies upon their own soldiers,” Asid said, his voice quavering. “We cannot let that happen.”

“Understood,” Shiro said firmly. Lance flicked his eyes over at Shiro. As per usual, there was no judgment, no condescension in his grey eyes. Just a resolve to accomplish the task to which they were set. “We will do everything in our power to make sure your people and your physical traits are never weaponized.” Felan’is smiled broadly again. It still unnerved Lance, though the young Calrex seemed affable enough, and was very cooperative. 

“With your arrival, we believe the traitor will panic. We are not a warlike people, you must know. A threat of your magnitude will frighten them into action,” Mersal said.

“So you’re expecting something to occur tonight?” Allura asked, her eyebrows raising. 

“It makes sense to anticipate it, yes. The small and large councils have been aware of your arrival for several days now. This evening, there will be a small banquet held for you; nothing lavish, you see. We need a gathering, but nothing so large that we cannot keep keen eyes on what is happening,” Jerhan said. 

 _Oh my god, like a plot device in a book. I guess sabotage is universal,_  Lance thought to himself, more amused than anything. Beside him, Hunk bit back a soft snort of laughter. Lance smirked. _Yeah, you think it’s funny now, but someone always sneaks off during a turning point party and makes out with someone. And usually it’s the put-upon best friend who walks in on-_

Hunk jabbed at his side again. Shiro squinted across the table at them, his mouth turning down in a disappointed moue. Lance winced a little; Shiro’s disappointment was almost worse than whatever the Galra could cook up.

“Do you have any defenses in place?” Shiro asked, turning his attention back to Asid and the others. Asid shook his head.

“No. We’ve never had the need, you see. We are peaceful, and nothing has ever been a threat to us before, nor have we made to threaten anyone else,” he said. 

“So we have nothing to go over in preparation for whatever happens tonight,” Keith said tightly. Asid looked stressed. Shiro placed a hand on Keith’s arm, quieting him. Keith bristled, but sat back in his chair. Beside Lance, Hunk bit his lip to conceal a smile. Lance quirked an eyebrow at them. Hunk huffed a little through his nose, but turned his attentions back to the Calrexans. Keith met Lance’s gaze; his mouth turned upward in a small smile, and he rolled his eyes quickly, discreetly. 

Lance’s breath caught in his throat and he blinked rapidly at Keith before flashing him a radiant smile. Keith didn’t seem worried about this situation. The Galra weren’t even on this planet. This should be a simple mission, and then they could get back to business. Well, this sort of _was_  their business, though usually it involved freeing planets that were already under the empire’s thumb. It wasn’t often that they got the chance to work with a group who weren’t already dominated. 

“We are not warriors,” Asid said tiredly. “We are scholars, architects, artists. War is not something we particularly excel in, except the guards.”

“That’s good though, isn’t it?” Pidge proposed, leaning forward. The small council looked at her in confusion, with the exception of Felan’is, who was wide-eyed with curiosity. “If this traitor is on the large council, then he’s not trained to fight back. He may be strong, but he’s got no technique. We’re not aiming to disable his blood resistance, like the Galra. We just need to subdue and imprison him. All that strength is wasted if he’s not going to be able to use it properly,” she reasoned. “I’d bet one of your guards could take him out on that merit alone.”

Five pairs of yellow eyes blinked at her, and then Felan’is broke into another one of his disarming grins.

“What a brilliant one she is!” he exclaimed. Pidge smiled, only a little smug. Shiro smiled warmly at her.

“That’s our Pidge,” he said fondly, casting his approving gaze on her. This time she flushed with pride, settling back in her seat. 

“The only problem is that members of the large council have their own guards. Likely he has convinced them to remain loyal no matter what,” Senesh countered. Pidge shrugged.

“That’s true, but what are his few guards against the guards of literally everyone else on the council, plus all of Voltron?” she said. “This isn’t going to end well for him.”

“Well, I think the only thing we can do is familiarize ourselves with the Central Palace. Aside from the obvious points of his blood resistance and his own guards, his only advantage may be that of the native ground,” Allura said. She looked at Lance for approval. He smiled and nodded, which made her beam with pride. She meant to say ‘home field advantage’, as he’d been teaching her Earth slang, but somehow, native ground came out instead. He thought native ground sounded so much more... well, more Allura, anyway. 

“It’s a better than what we had before,” Asid said wearily. 

“We didn’t have anything before, Father,” Felan’is said, tilting his head. Mersal shook his head and Jerhan let out a quiet sigh. 

\---

After being shown the banquet room, the paladins and Allura were led back to their suites, which were a series of bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a commons. Lance vaulted over the back of a couch and sprawled out on his back, staring up at the ceiling. It was vaulted, arching high above them and made out of the same white stone as the rest of The City. A mural of a vast flower field was painted upon it, and it was so beautiful that it suddenly made sense to Lance why nearly everyone on the planet was an artist. 

Pidge sat behind his legs, throwing hers over his knees, and Keith sat next to his head. They both peered down at him.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Pidge asked. Lance pointed upward. They craned their heads back to look, as did did the others. Hunk let out a low whistle. 

“It’s as pretty as the Sistine Chapel,” he wondered aloud. 

“Maybe Michelangelo was an alien,” Pidge said with a grin. 

“Or maybe he was taught by an alien,” Keith suggested. 

“Let’s focus on these aliens, first,” Shiro reasoned. Lance tipped two fingers to his forehead and gave a little mock salute, still lying on his back.

“Major Buzzkill,” he teased. Keith huffed a laugh beside him, and Lance grinned widely. At this point in their relationship, Shiro had no problem flipping Lance off, and he did so, which made Pidge cackle. 

“I think we should split up,” Allura interceded.

“Okay, Daphne.” Allura narrowed her eyes at Lance, who was still grinning. 

“The older you all get, the more childish you become,” she grumbled, crossing her arms. Shiro sighed heavily.

“I agree with Allura. All of us don’t need to know every inch of the palace, but we should know the majority of it. The traitor can’t have many guards; even Asid himself only has two. And I don’t think he’ll strike before tonight,” he said. 

“Should we go in teams?” Keith asked, dragging out the ‘should’ in a somewhat playful manner. Shiro twitched his mouth to the side, considering the option.

“I don’t think it’s necessary, given the circumstances. If we happen to meet up with each other in our wanderings, that’s fine, but I think we should all pick a different place to explore first,” he said. Beside him, Hunk began chuckling, but quickly cut himself off with a cough. Shiro turned to him. “I’d keep your ability.. uh, on?” Shiro rubbed the back of his head. “Is that accurate?” Hunk shrugged.

“More or less. Default seems to be “listening”, so I haven’t really remembered that I need to shut down yet,” he said. 

“Well, keep listening. That way, if any of us is in trouble, we can let you know,” Shiro said with a nod. Lance twisted to his feet, still feeling loose from that morning’s yoga.

“Well, I’m going to splitsville before Shiro puts on an ascot,” he said. 

“You five begin exploring. I’m having Coran shuttle a pod down with your formal armour, and I’m going to retrieve it. It should be landing near the lions,” Allura said. “Please, all of you, be careful. And polite,” she added as an afterthought. 

\---

Lance wandered down a bright, wide corridor, swinging his arms back and forth. He wished he’d brought his casual clothes down - he kind of wanted to stuff his hands into the pockets of his coat. Roaming down a hallway, doing nothing more than making mental notes of alcoves, outcroppings, and hideaways made the armour seem excessive. Sure, he looked _damn good_  in it, all broad shoulders, lean waist, long legs. Yeah, he was _fine_ , but his coat still fit him after all these years and poking around in a palace didn’t really require armour. 

He came upon a small bump-out with a carved bench and some narrow potted plants. He stepped into it, bringing his foot up and shoving at the bench. Sturdy, but not bolted down. He glanced upward, noting the smooth vaulted ceiling. Nothing special, but the whole thing was enough for an ambush. Noted.

A little way ahead of him, the hall curved sharply, and he followed it. There were several doors on his right and a series of windows along the entire wall to his left. He peered out through one of the windows; there was a courtyard of some sort, it seemed. Mature trees? yeah, he figured they were trees, and flowers were packed in. The area seemed narrow, but very deep - it extended all the way up the corridor. There were no doors on his side, either, so Lance decided to not worry about it. One of the others would see to it, or he’d meet up with them later, or.. whatever. He shrugged and crossed the hall, knocking on the first door. No response came from inside, but the door was ajar. 

“Jinkies,” he muttered to himself with a smirk. He nudged the door open with his foot and slipped inside. It seemed to be a guest quarters, just a single room with a door on the other side that presumably led to a washroom. The bed had the vague shape of a clam, which was _weird_ , and furniture like a vanity and end tables carved out of stone. Lance wandered over and pulled on a drawer experimentally. It didn’t so much as budge. Not even a little jiggle. He frowned at it, tugged harder. Nothing.

“You’re just determined to crush my delicate sensibilities, aren’t you?” he asked the drawer. The drawer didn’t answer. “Rude,” he huffed. He wrapped both of his hands around the handle and pulled. Still nothing. Frowning now, he bent low, planted his toes against the legs of the table, and heaved -

And fell right back on his ass. 

Scowling, he flopped onto his back, only to startle as he saw Keith staring down at him. “What the hell, Keith!” The red paladin grinned and crouched down, flicking Lance’s forehead. Lance crinkled his nose. _How did I not hear him?_ “Wait, how long were you there? I just got here!”

“Long enough to hear you insulting inanimate objects, dummy,” Keith said with a chuckle. Scowling again, he lifted his hands over his head and shoved at Keith’s knees, causing him to fall back with a grunt. He squirmed around until he was sitting on his knees, facing Keith. “That door over there links to a bathroom, or the Calrexan equivalent of a bathroom because it’s _weird_ , which is attached to another room just like this on the other side.”

“And did _you_  try opening a drawer?” Lance asked in an accusatory tone. Keith shrugged.

“Well, yeah.” Lance blinked, then grinned at him. A few years ago, Keith would have denied doing the same foolish think he’d done just on the principle that it would be something he had in common with Lance. Now Keith was admitting to this kind of goofy shit freely. It made Lance’s chest feel tight, made him want to -

He cut his train of thought off, shaking his head. He stood fluidly, extending his hand to Keith, who hesitated half a moment before placing his fingers into Lance’s and pulling himself up. Lance’s eyes widened and his breath caught in his chest for the second time that day. He’d been expecting Keith to grab his forearm, not the tips of his fingers, and he’d hauled him up with a little more force. Keith overbalanced for a moment, rocking dangerously close to Lance’s chest. Lance froze, leaving Keith to reach out and reflexively grab at Lance’s bicep, his breath rushing out of him momentarily. 

This was it. RIP in pieces Lance McFucking Epinosa, slaughtered mercilessly by fluttering eyelashes and overwhelming gay thoughts about his teammate. _Sorry for letting you down, Universe, but this is how I’d rather go out - unable to move with the world’s fastest forming quarter chub in an alien bedroom._

But Keith stepped backward with the barest of flushes across his pale face, mumbling an apology, and Lance could feel life flooding back into him. Or maybe it was just his blood returning to its rightful place in his brain. Really, what difference was there? He released Lance’s arm and his hand, and Lance absolutely _refused_  to believe that his hand reflexively reached for Keith’s before he yanked it back to his side and held it there, definitely not shaking a little. At all. _No-ope._

“Trying to send me through a wall?” Keith asked, chuckling, scratching at the back of his head. 

“Huh - oh! Ha-ha,” he breathed, trying to go for naive and instead sounding nervous _(smooth fucking move)_. “Just making sure you remember I can kick your ass now.” Keith snorted, rolling his eyes and turning away. 

“As if.” Lance exhaled noiselessly, closing his eyes in relief for half a second. The tension had melted from between them, and he followed Keith as he made his way to the door Lance had come in through. “I’ve already been up and down the hallway on the other side, so should we keep going on your side?”

“Yeah, that works. There’s a garden on the other side of the hall, and I want to find the entrance to it to see what’s up with it,” Lance said. They wandered out into the hall and Lance took to humming songs under his breath so that he wouldn’t say anything stupid about Keith’s mullet, like how he should never ever cut it or how soft it looked. The rest of the doors led into bedrooms similar to the one they’d met in, except there was no exit. Same weird clam bed, same immovable stone furniture. Keith’s same shitty jokes, asking Lance if he wanted to try moving the vanity or the stool. Lance shoved him into a wall and danced right out of the way of the red paladin’s swiping grasp. 

They still hadn’t found a door to the garden, however, and the windows didn’t have any latches on them that would enable them to be pushed open and climbed through. Every other window was a stained glass piece of art, depicting a myriad of things - flora and fauna, the construction of buildings, the worship of some light in the sky. They were beautiful, but Lance really wanted to find a door and see if there were any advantages to be had in the garden. They turned a corner, the courtyard still on their left, when Keith seized Lance’s wrist in an iron grip.

“What -”

“ _Lance_ ,” he breathed earnestly, fearfully. “Shiro!”

Lance followed Keith’s gaze into the garden, where the black paladin was fending off the attacks of a Calrexan. Shiro ducked under a low tree branch as one sticky looking hand came down and shattered it into thousands of splinters. He rolled, bayard in hand, then thrust it forward. A grappling chain rushed toward the Calrexan, attempting to bind its legs together. It easily broke the hold, purple particles flying as the bayard dematerialized. The Calrexan lumbered toward Shiro, arm poised. Shiro’s face was soaked in sweat, his hair plastered sideways across his forehead. How long had this been going on? Where was Hunk? Why couldn’t they hear the fight?

“We have to get to him!” Keith shouted, rushing forward and slamming his fist against the glass. It shuddered, but didn’t make so much as a cracking noise in its frame. Without thinking, Lance drew his bayard and formed a bright white and blue bow. 

“Move!” he ordered. Keith didn’t even look back at him; he jumped out of the way and Lance fired an energy arrow in the same breath, shattering the glass. He and Keith leapt through the hole, racing toward Shiro. 

“Shiro!” Keith shouted. Neither Shiro nor the Calrexan looked up, too embroiled in combat to lose focus. Shiro lit his cybernetic arm and shoved his fist into the Calrexan’s abdomen. It stumbled backward half a step, but that barely slowed its advance. Keith pulled out his bayard and summoned his sword, slashing at the Calrexan’s back with all the strength he could muster. The blade barely bit into the blood shield; Keith’s downward swing was slowed, as if caught in molassas. He pulled the blade back, and then stabbed into the creature. The blood shield caught his sword and jarred it out of his hand, and he watched in surprise as his bayard fell to the ground. 

“Keith!” Shiro grunted. Keith saw the arm swinging toward him and nearly ducked out of the way fast enough, but the limb clipped him and sent him flying into a shrubbery some ten feet away. 

Lance fired three energy arrows at it in quick succession, but they were absorbed into the blood shield and didn’t seem to effect the Calrexan any more than Keith’s sword had. It had turned its attention back to Shiro, who managed to parry a swing from its arm with his cybernetic one, though he cried out in pain as his shoulder twisted back. Lance shot another energy arrow into its head, which seemed to distract it slightly.

“Shiro, we’ve got to get out of here, our weapons are completely useless and I really don’t feel like dyin’ here!” Lance shouted. He swore he saw Shiro _shake his head_ , but that couldn’t be it, because Lance knew that Shiro was, in fact, quite sane, and would never suggest staying here and being beaten into the ground by goddamn snotty blood monster. The Calrexan kicked out with one of its shapeless legs, knocking Shiro’s feet out from under him.The black paladin didn’t fall, though, because it grabbed Shiro’s cybernetic arm and hauled him into the air.

“S-Shiro!” Keith groaned, his face cut and bleeding, limping slightly as he tried to get to Shiro. 

Lance could feel anxiety wash over him, smothering him, blanketing the adrenaline of battle. His vision wavered, his focus fading in and out along with his hearing. How could they possibly defeat an enemy that couldn’t be hurt by anything they did? And these _stupid_  aliens didn’t even understand how their own bodies worked, so he couldn’t just tickle its armpits and make it lose control of its limbs. This was a virtually indestructible force that was railing against them and currently was about to murder their leader, his friend, his family. It was that damn blood resistance of theirs, but it absorbed every attack, shifting around every blade that bit and every arrow that pierced. There wasn’t any way to stop it, to dismantle it, to -

A piercing scream fractured the veil of anxiety that had fallen over Lance. Its pitch wavered from deep to much higher pitched, and then cut off with a gruesome gurgle. Lance cast his gaze about wildly, snapping back to Shiro and the Calrexan as Shiro was dropped out of its grasp. He fell to the ground and immediately put a knee under himself, pressing to his feet and stumbling backwards as he clutched his shoulder. The Calrexan had seized up, its neck twisted to the side. The arm that had previously held Shiro was now curled in toward its torso, its fingers splayed at grotesque angles as it fought whatever spell held it. Yellow eyes were wide with panic and its mouth was locked open in a silent scream. The rest of its posture was rigid and shaking, but the worst part was the blood shield. It was still - it had stopped its constant flow across the Calrexan’s body. It appeared to have lumps in it now, almost like sludge, and it began to take on a sheen, like it was hardening. This seemed to be the cause of the massive pain and paralysis. 

And it was coming from Lance.

He could _feel_  it in him. It slowed his breathing, or he thought it did. It felt like he was existing in slow-mo, like he was in a Matrix movie. Something like slow, undulating ripples radiated out from his chest, pulsing slowly and thickly down his arms and legs, throbbing painfully at the base of his skull. A quiet rustling, like silk scraping across a great marble statue, caressed his mind, his bones, _his_  blood. The whispering sound was almost sentient, he felt, like it was a gentle hand stroking the side of his face and telling him what to do. But not with words, or even feelings. It told him with instinct and a morality of its own, and Lance had a sinking feeling that those morals didn’t point exactly due north. Every breath he took was a struggle, like he had gone and _swallowed_  the viscous blood of the Calrexans. He could hear Shiro calling for him, could feel Keith’s strong fingers grasping at his hand. And he could feel something pulsing within those strong fingers. _Warm, wet, water, Adam’s sweet, sweet ale -_

Lance gasped in a great breath of air and jolted away from Keith, terrified of that deep pulse within him. He could feel it receding back into his core, gently caressing him as it went until it vanished completely. The Calrexan attacker was screaming again, gravelly and sobbing as it collapsed to its knees. Lance’s eyes were impossibly wide, he could feel them, they _hurt_ , everything in him hurt. His fingernails, his eyelashes, his teeth and tongue. His mouth was dry, like he’d been chewing on cotton. He began to shake all over, uncontrollably. He looked to Shiro, who was _alive_ , holy shit, he was alive. He was staring at Lance, eyes wide as he rubbed at his shoulder. Keith was staring too, hovering close, eyes wide but brows knit in concern. Keith reached for Lance’s hand again, and Lance could see his mouth preparing to form his name.

His name, from Keith’s mouth. His name, Lance, he was Lance, and Keith wanted to help. Keith wanted to reach out, share his warmth, warmth from the _water -_

“No!” Lance sobbed, drawing his hand to his chest, far from Keith’s questing fingers. Keith flinched back at the ferocity in Lance’s voice. _Good_ , Lance thought. “Don’t touch me. You - you _can’t_  touch me.” His voice cracked, _he_  cracked. 

“Lance -” Shiro began, stepping forward. Lance shook his head fiercely, which only hurt him more, but he _needed_  to hurt. He looked back at the Calrexan, who had fallen over onto its side and lay there, immobile. He could hear people crashing through the garden, knew that it was Hunk. Shiro had called for him, Hunk had heard, Hunk was here to help, that blessed ability of his could help people. 

“Not like this,” Lance gasped out. Before he could be interrogated, he shoved past Keith, ignoring the shouts of his teammates. He leapt through the window he’d shattered and took off through the castle, not looking back, not looking at the confused Calrexan guards who were no doubt on their way to the courtyard. He ran, long legs carrying him out of the palace and through the winding streets of The City. 

 _Blue, Blue, Blue,_  he cried, over and over, the only comfort he could find. She guided his footfalls, and he flew to her, feet slapping against the paved stone roads until he found the lions, found his beloved Blue. 

Lance fled. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's my formal apology to lance. thanks for taking one for the team. you're still my favourite.
> 
> hooo buddy. i'm sorry that took so long to get to you. i struggled with this chapter so badly for months, and it didn't go anywhere near where i thought it was going to, but i'm really pleased with it anyway and i hope you are too! it's nearly three am and i just finished it and i'm so excited to get it out to you all. it's really really long, and i'm sorry for that. it's also unbeta'd as always, so any mistakes are my own and you may throw rotten fruit at me for them.
> 
> thank you all for your kind words and your kudos and every piece of encouragement i've received for this. you are all very, very important to me and i would bake you all your favourite snacks if i could. you deserve them. you deserve to be happy. so does lance, but he had to suffer. because reasons. 
> 
> special thanks to my sister for letting me bitch at you consistently for like four months straight. you're the chief turd burglar, and you deserve all of connie's patpats. also to my anxiety and guilt complex, which kept me away from dragon age long enough for me to finish this. 
> 
> the fic tag is 'fic: let it burst' and i'm sammythemattressthief on tumblr; when i finally see any asks, i promise you they'll make my day. maybe even my week. 
> 
> thank you thank you thank you! 
> 
> This chapter's title brought to you by Florence and the Machine.


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